Seed Sharing

I have created my seed inventory spreadsheet!  It may seem obsessive but it will help me plant on time, and assist in deciding what seeds to buy for the coming year. 

The spreadsheet is on Google Docs, so I can share it with you! If you are interested in any of the seeds I'm happy to share as long as my listed quantity is more than "handful".  By handful, I mean 12 seeds or less, so I probably can't part with those.

Carbon's Seed Inventory

I still have about half of my seeds left to enter, so that's why tomatoes aren't on the list yet. :)

In Retrospect

A helpful thought that has come me lately is this: I can only get pregnant in restrospect.  

Getting me pregnant is not something we can do in the present or future tense. It isn't something I can plan, or schedule, or even wish into being. It is only after I have been there for a while, the biological cogs gently turning at their own pace, that slowly the realization comes.  Then, only then, can I look back and say we conceived!

But, from here, there is no way to bring it into being. There is no thought or action that has any bearing whatsoever. It only happens in retrospect.

In retrospect, 2008 was an impatient year. There were certain ups and downs, certain victories, a few quagmires. But, an undercurrent of impatience punctuated all of it.  I hope to live more in the present in 2009.

Foiled by Dreams

Here I am with firm intentions and well-laid plans to NOT think about TTC stuff this cycle.  Yet, for the past two nights I have been dreaming about babies...  other people's babies.  

I can't remember the one from night before last, but last night... oh man... Somehow I agreed to volunteer to work at an infant daycare. It involved lots of holding and feeding babies of the extremely cute variety.  I woke up this morning full of that empty feeling of wanting to be a mother.  Its time to regroup, and sign up for that yoga/pilates class.

It is also time to honor my family's post-Christmas tradition.  My grandmother firmly believed it was bad luck to let your Christmas decorations see the New Year.  My mom is going to be extra vigilant about it this year. Last year she was not so vigilant.  The annual total amounts to a broken foot from a falling television, and a totalled car after an encounter with a negligently-driven semi truck.  She has since recovered, with a nice newer 4wd vehicle.  But, hesitates to invite any catastrophes for 2009.

Merry Day

To all who wander this way, whether it is your first and only visit or one of many, please accept your greeting of choice. :)

Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays

etc.

In otherwords, I hope you have an awesome sort of day, and I hope it is just as special or ordinary as you would like it to be.

We do presents and traditional strawberry waffles at Mom & Dad's.  That is, after we excavate our car from the latest round of snow.  Our totals are in the 3 foot range now!

Intentions for Cycle 7

My intentions are thus:  

Drink lots of green tea.

Imbibe until New Years (not constantly, but no deprivation either)

If my next cycle hasn't started by then, test on January 25th~ish

That's it.

I'm trying to stay away from constant fertility information and comiseration. I moved my shortcut to the forums so my visits have been rare.  I still find myself reading my favorite blogs because I feel somewhat invested in the outcomes, as invested as one can get through characters on a computer screen.  I think I'm going to drop out of the TTC livejournal group I recently joined.  I have little connection there.

The energy I have placed upon hunting for information, and trading impatient sentiments, I hope to redirect toward something more immediately fulfilling and constructive, like...

My programming project for work - I have a big helping of "I don't wanna" when it comes to this.  Yet, if I can just get going on it, I will become immersed, and the outcome is very important.  I need to have it 95% done by January 5th.

Getting a FileMaker certification. 

Learning more tunes on my keyboard.

Exercising (Wii Yoga or my beginning pilates routine if nothing else)

Writing (finishing my NaNo from 2005)

If productive pursuits seem like the bane of my existance, I can always turn my attention to games.  On the Wii I could finish Zelda or MarioKart or play more Sims Pets.  On the DS, I have one game I'm in the middle of and two others to start. On the computer, I can ALWAYS play more CivIV.

I really need a new book to read...  I don't want to buy the next Twilight book, as a coworker said she'd lend it to me after break.  Yet, I don't really have anything else to read between now and then.  Maybe I'll pick up the China Study or other nonfiction used from Amazon or something. 

The point of this post: I have plenty to do in terms of entertainment or productivity that has nothing to do with TTC.  So, I'm trying not to go there as much as possible.

14 inches on a small car

Waffling

I keep waffling between going back to the relax method and redoubling my/our efforts.

True, I just got done throwing some money at the internets for some boxers for DH. But, I'm not sure I want to move over to the trying for 6+ months forum. I'm not sure I want to keep temping and charting. I don't even think it matters because we BD regularly enough as it is.

I still haven't responded to my friend's pregnancy announcement. Sigh. I think I'll go do that when I'm done with this note.

I emailed a yoga instructor in town, I really like the newbie program on their web site. It starts in early January though, so I wanted to ask if there was still space available. No response just yet.

Last night I played Sims2 Pets for a while. It was an okay distraction. We always have video games to play, but I just don't feel very interested. I guess I'd love a good book, but I don't have any at hand...

I feel in a bit of a rut since we're partly snowed in, and likely to get even more snowed in tomorrow. I was going to convince DH to come to work with me so I can get my laptop. I would hate to get stuck in our tiny car. With my work laptop maybe I can get the huge mega programming project done that has gotten pushed back over 2 years....

Nevermind ~ seeds

AF is here. I really need a hobby. Maybe yoga. For tonight it will be wine.

Gardening is my primary hobby of course. But, you can't do much about it in the winter besides stare at garden prOn (otherwise known as seed catalogs). I love gardening, To a T asked what I do with all of my seeds. My answer is, plant them. Or, imagine that I will plant them anyway.

My "garden" consists of the following:

Edibles:
A 3x5ft raised bed in which I grow salad veggies.
A 6ft row along the fence that I have used for tomatoes.
A 8ft row along another fence that I have used for peas and cucumbers).
A 6x6ft patch near the back fence that is too overrun with earwigs to do much with. Three attempts at corn have failed....
I also have patches/hills for raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries. But, they don't require seeding.

Flowers:
I have two flower beds out front beyond the fence, flower beds along the front fence, two flower beds beneath the aspen trees, one flower bed along the side of the house, and a big flower bed out back.

Each year I have a few successes and several failures. Despite all of the garden/flower beds listed, I have a SMALL yard! I also don't tend to it as much as I should. So, I've been trying to fill each flower bed with low maintenance plants to cut back on weeding duty.

So, with flower seed I love collecting and spreading that which does best all on its own. I can spread a handful of calendula seed or snapdragon seed and it just takes off next spring, crowding out anything I don't want there. There is something magical about cracking open a snapdragon pod and collecting all of the "snapdragon eggs" as DH once called them. :)

With veggie seed, its more of an organic gardening / preservation / survival / romantic streak. I have romantic notions of the failure of modern infrastructure causing us to take all of my seeds out into the country somewhere and carving out a living. Of course, I don't really know much about living off of the land. We'd likely starve to death over the first winter, but it sounds cool somehow.

Overall, I guess you could say I like buying, collecting, saving, (and sometimes planting) large varieties of seeds like some women collect shoes. Only, its much easier on the budget. :)

A Secret...

I've been afraid to write this because I don't know what to believe and I don't want to jinx anything...

I'm on CD 34, 14 DPO, my usual LP length is 11-12 days my longest cycle was 31 days. I've been spotting lightly (brown/gray only) for the past 4 days including today. For the past couple of days I've had intermittent cramps/discomfort/stabbing pains on the right side ONLY. No other symptoms. My temp nosedived this AM, but still no sign of the real AF. My temps, CM, and OPKs and post-O nipple soreness are all telling me I ovulated on CD 20 without a doubt. We also BD'd at the right times. But, now I'm quite confused.

I had a BFN yesterday morning on an internet cheapie. I'm out of tests, so we're going to Walgreens. I will probably test again tomorrow AM.

Tagged - 7 Random Things

I was tagged by To A T! Thanks for the tag T! :)

So, here are some random things...

1. I collect small containers for saving seeds in. I have altoids containers, spice containers, little make-up jars, pill bottles, tiny ziplock bags, etc. I would have to say my favorites for small seeds are the little plastic SD card holders. I probably have enough containers to last the rest of my life! Yet, it is still hard to toss out any potential candidates.

2. IMNSHO, The Flight of the Hamsters game is THE BEST single-click game ever. If you want to waste time, CLICKY. My top single flight is around 600, DH's is over 1000! The secret: try to stay level, and avoid big bounces.

3. I have a soap phobia. Anything that is washed MUST be rinsed THOROUGHLY or else it will make me feel ill. When I was little hearing threats toward my cousins of having their mouths washed out with soap seemed to me a fate worse than death. Even when I was older, it took me a while before I was willing to wash cuts with soap and water. It was peroxide or nothin! I've relaxed a bit over the years.

4. I <3 soup. Seriously, I could eat soup every single day. That is the one bright spot of these bitterly cold temps we've been having. Its superb soup weather! Minestrone is my favorite, but I enjoy all kinds. I never met a soup I didn't like. OTOH, DH doesn't like soup at all. So, I eat it for lunch at work every day. :)

5. I finally switched us over from using paper towels as napkins, to using real napkins! It makes me feel less wasteful, and I enjoy using them more anyway.

6. I received a very nice very thankful email from a parent the other day. She'd been struggling to get some assistive technology going in the classroom for her child, and she was very appreciative of my efforts to move things along. It made me feel warm and fuzzy. :)

7. I recently learned that an old friend is pregnant, and quite far along. I'm trying to process it in a graceful manner. AF is due any minute, and has threatened with some spotting. My temps are still up, which amounts to a sliver of hope. But... it would be so much easier if... I even had brief visions of us reconnecting over the subject of motherhood.

Anyone I might even think of tagging has already been tagged. So, I tag anyone who has felt left out, or read a list of tagged bloggers hoping to see their name and coming up empty.

Patience

Today I find myself in need of quotations and affirmations on patience. So, I looked some up.

http://www.coping.org/growth/patient.htm
http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/patience/
http://thinkexist.com/quotations/patience/

That helped, I think. Next I would like to do something positive and peaceful. Maybe with DH, but if not, then perhaps Yoga or some low-key gaming.

Present and O-counted for

I landed my darkest line ever on an OPK, complete with twinges in the appropriate region on my right side. It's all in the hands of the Universe now! I'm feeling pretty happy.

I'm temping again, with a fair amount of regularity. I suspect a temp spike tomorrow morning.

My back has been tweaked :( For reasons I cannot fathom, DH is philosophically/ideologically opposed to chiropractors. He said he'll be more active with me if I can avoid going to a chiropractor. So, maybe I will make use of that and we'll go for walks more often. We don't live in the most walkable neighborhood, but there is a state park 20 minutes away. I have grand visions of us cross-country skiing, or some such. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. :)

Mario Kart Wii is a great passtime, and while it seems to boost the heartrate on occasion, it doesn't count as exercise!

I still live

Here I am, alive! I guess there hasn't been much news on the TTC front. Mostly, I have had some extremely busy weeks at home and at werk. We had a federal funding period to get ready for, but now that has blown over I'm much less stressed.

Its just in time for O and BD. I'm not sure I've O'd just yet, my temps are still lowish but I've gotten progressively darker lines on the OPK. If I had to guess, I'm O'ing nowish and my temp will spike tomorrow morn.

I'm crossing my crossables and feeling various shades of hopeful. I'm also piloting extreme quantities of hamsters through the air. I'm addicted, my longest flight was over 300 feet. http://www.digyourowngrave.com/flight-of-the-hamsters/

I'm about halfway through Wicked. I was expecting something a bit more congruous with the Wizard of Oz. The adult content threw me at first. Once I wrapped my brain around Wicked on its own merits I've been enjoying it much more.